


And I Cannot Breathe

by dreamingunderthetstars



Series: Snowflakes and Hiccups [3]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Depression, Dragons are humans, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nerd!Jack, Night Terrors, Punk!Hiccup, Reverse PNAU, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-06
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-08 01:58:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4286304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamingunderthetstars/pseuds/dreamingunderthetstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some nights Jack dreams. Some nights he dreams of nothing at all. But there are some nights where he dreams of Hiccup. Those are the best nights.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And I Cannot Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> Third piece of Snowflakes and Hiccups. There may be a trigger(s) in this chapter for some people.

Some nights Jack dreams. He dreams of drowning and the deafening crack of the ice and the sound of a child screaming his name. Some nights he dreams of there being no savior and Dagur going too far, no one to stop him. Some nights he dreams of nothing at all. He isn’t reminded of his failure, his broken promise to keep his sister safe. She was supposed to grow up. He was not. But he was still here, breathing, but not living. He didn’t think he could ever learn to live again. But there are some nights where he dreams of Hiccup.

Those are the best nights.                              

These past few months felt like a blur of kaleidoscope colors and euphoria. For all of his reputation and scowl, Hiccup was the best boyfriend – and only boyfriend, really – that Jack has had. Hiccup never gets frustrated with Jack whenever he freezes at touch or when Hiccup gets too close for comfort. Dagur was expelled and his father put him in military school. Jack almost feels sorry for the bully. Almost.

Tooth and Nikolas sleep better at night knowing that Jack is speaking once again and slowly returning to the child they nurtured and raised. Emma doesn’t cry herself to sleep that much anymore and Jack doesn’t find himself drowning in his thoughts in the dead of the night, his mistakes and flaws becoming personified with claws and sharp teeth waiting to rip him to shreds. For the most part, Hiccup chases those personified claws and fangs away from his mind with his own words.

Toothless’ enraged shout pulls Jack away from his thoughts. Toothless is covered from head to toe with the string cheese in a spray bottle. Stormfly, Hookfang, and Camicazi are on the floor, laughing, as cans roll around them. There were only two days before summer vacation, and Jack’s junior year would begin. He’d only have one year before high school ended and college would be on the horizon. It was a frightening reality, knowing that soon he would be of legal age and be off on his own without parental supervision. Soon, his small family would be broken, spread out across the country, as each began the path to their futures.

Hiccup is reading some book on prosthetics as he’s sprawled on Stormfly’s couch. Jack is curled up next to him, soaking in the warmth exuding off of Hiccup. Astrid looks up from her laptop, scoffing at the others, and the twins, Barf and Belch, are drinking a weird green beverage, burping after every minute as if in a contest with one another. Jack never bothered to learn their real names, and the two never bothered to tell him.

“You three are idiots,” Pippa snorts from where she’s currently lying on the floor, engaged in a video game with Jamie, Torch, and Cupcake. It was Mario Kart.

Toothless glowered at the three teenagers that were still causing a ruckus, looking every bit an irritated kitten.

Jack hasn’t gotten a good rest in a while. He’s terrified of closing his eyes and experiencing another blood curdling nightmare that would leave him choking on his screams, gasping for breath, desperate to make barely a noise. In a way, he supposes that his nightmares are a way of punishing himself. Punishing himself for not being strong enough to fight Dagur, for not being quick and clever in his failed rescue of Penelope, of being so broken and horrible and twisted that not even Death wanted him. Self-flagellation.

It was a destructive thing.

A horrible, depressing reality.

So Jack curls up closer to Hiccup, as if the older boy would be able to fend off the monsters lurking in the back of Jack’s mind, and pretends for just a simple moment that he wasn’t a shattered as the mirror on the wall tells him he is.

Before Jack can pull himself out of his lucidity, he’s pulled into the realm of dreams.

* * *

As normal, Jack awakens with a choked scream and flailing limbs, as if he’s drowning or a fish out of water. He’s not on the couch in Stormfly’s living room but he’s on a firm but comfortable enough full sized bed. The room is unfamiliar, dressed in colors of a dark blue and black. The curtains are closed, making the room almost completely dark if not for the bedside lamp being turned on and the auburn haired teenager that was no gripping him, green eyes brimming with concern.

Anxiety curls around Jack’s throat, squeezing so tight that he cannot breathe properly. His heartbeat propels, rattling like an impatient bird in a cage, wanting freedom. His fingers and bones shake, trembling underneath his skin. Skin that was supposed to be rotten and decomposed. Skin that belonged to a boy who was supposed to die that day on the lake, instead of his little sister. Jack shuts his eyes, hoping that the nightmare will recede from his memory, forgotten just like the days when he was a toddler.

His lips quiver. A hysterical sob builds on the tip of his tongue, in the back of his throat. His heart aches. His head hurts. His bones feel weary, as if the very effort of trying to remain calm in the aftershock of a nightmare takes too much energy, too much time. Tears threaten to escape.

“Hey,” Hiccup murmurs against his skin. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s alright, Jack. It was just a nightmare. A bad dream. Nothing going to hurt you anymore, not while I’m around.”

Jack leans in the warmth and safety Hiccup silently provides, allowing himself to be curled up into a ball and tucked underneath his boyfriends’ chin. Jack presses his face against Hiccup’s chest as the delinquent rubs his back soothingly, whispering words in a different language. Jack’s breath still hitches and his shoulders still shudder but at least he isn’t on the verge of succumbing to the urge that’s screaming at him to do something drastic, something he knows he will never be able to take back.

They lay like that for a while, too comfortable to move or speak.

“You okay, now?” Hiccup inquires softly.

Jack barely manages a nod as he grips the front of Hiccup’s shirt like a lifeline. “Sorry,” Jack whispers.

“You did nothing wrong,” Hiccup replied. “You just had a nightmare. There’s nothing wrong with that, Jack.”

“I screamed,” Jack said.

“I used to scream too, whenever I had a nightmare.” Hiccup explained. “When my older sister went missing and I got home to the house in disarray, I had nightmares about finding her dead body or getting kidnapped myself. My mom called it night terrors. I still get them now. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Snowflake. You went through some traumatic things, but none of those were your fault.”

Jack disagreed. “I was too slow to save her, Hiccup. I wasn’t strong enough to stop Dagur or my parents. I can’t even stand up for myself when it’s needed.”

Hiccup poked Jack’s cheek and said, “Don’t talk like that, mister. You couldn’t have known that the ice was going to break or that your sister ignored your instructions. You couldn’t have known what Dagur’s intentions were, and it wasn’t your fault that your parents decided to harm you in a way that no parent should. You may not think of yourself as strong but you are strong, Jack. To be honest, you’re much stronger than me.”

Jack didn’t believe it for a minute. “B-but you’ve taken out guys twice your size, Haddock. Stop shitting me.”

Hiccup snorted. “I am doing nothing of the sort, Frost. Strength doesn’t have to mean the ability to fight with your fists. Strength has many variations of it.”

Jack still thought he was weak and that Hiccup was just trying to get him to feel better by telling him things that would never be true but he didn’t voice his opinions, simply nodded.

“Hey lovebirds!”

Torch barged into the room, grinning. There was a smudge of dirt on his cheek. “The movie is starting. Hurry up or the popcorn and the seats will all be gone.”

Hiccup gave Torch a glower. “What happened to knocking?”

Torch shrugged. “Knocking seems so trivial to me.”

“Torch!” Astrid yelled from downstairs. “Leave them alone or I swear I’ll bury you alive!”

Torch barked out a laugh before he winked suggestively at Jack and Hiccup, making haste as he left the room in case Hiccup decided that violence was an answer for retaliation, closing the door behind him. Jack could hear the chaos happening downstairs as everyone got themselves situated for the Marvel marathon. The starting movie was Captain America. Jack doesn’t want to move from Hiccup’s lap. If he could, he would stay there for eternity, surrounded by the warmth and the love and the protection. However, this is reality. This is life. Jack cannot stay hidden from the world forever.

His junior year is on the horizon, and soon he would be a senior.

Then college would come knocking.

For fuck’s sake, Jack doesn’t even have a clue of what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. He was still broken and twisted and his chest still ached whenever he moved. His mind still pressured him to go back to sleep, to stay asleep for the rest of his days. His limbs were still numb with exhaustion.

It hurt to move.

It hurt to think.

It hurt too much to exist.

As if sensing his rising anxiety, Hiccup whispers against Jack’s hair. “It’s going to be alright, Jack. I’m not going to leave you.”

Jack snuggled closer to the protection offered by his sexy, understanding boyfriend. Unwanted tears slipped out of eyes. Even if Hiccup always said the right things, reality would always rip everything he loved to pieces. And besides, no matter what promises one would make, everyone always left in the end.

People leave.

And Jack is always, always, always alone.

* * *

Jack finds himself floating in his dreamscape. It’s dark but the dark isn’t as terrifying as it normally is. Jack floats, undisturbed. He wonders if he’s dead but he knows he’s alive, deep down in his lucidity. There’s nothing in front of him or behind. There is no light, no sound, and no thoughts. Jack ponders on being in a coma since he isn’t dead. The last thing he remembers is—

That’s right.

He fell asleep in Hiccup’s arms.

Time doesn’t seem to have a place in the darkness surrounding Jack. It has no essence and no purpose. Time was a thing created by man for control. And what a thought that was.

Jack floats.

The dark stayed the dark until Jack shudders, suddenly, as the relaxing temperature in his dreamless dream changes, spikes down to freezing. It’s so cold. He curls up into a ball, shivering, as he floats midair but then a horrible cold chill washes over him and the darkness crashes around him like waves, pulling him under. Jack panics as the darkness ebbs into icy water angrily surrounding him. Tendrils wrap around Jack’s ankles, slithering up to his thighs as he’s yanked downwards, deeper into the ice, drowning.

Jack screams, desperately flailing his arms and legs in a failed attempt to breach the water and get out of the ice. There’s a hole above him and he can see bits and pieces of ice floating in the water. He can see the outline of ice skates on top of the ice next to the hole. That’s when it hits him.

He’s at the lake where his little sisters’ life ended.

Instead, he’s the one that’s drowning, dying.

Jack stops flailing, allowing the tendrils to pull him in deeper. He’s already lost feeling in his body and his skin has turned blue. His heartbeat thuds erratically in his chest as it begins to slow down but still putting in an effort for Jack to live.

It’s almost innerving to Jack how easily he’s accepted that Death has him in its grip.

A voice cuts through the water.

“...Ja…dre…get….Jac…Fro….”

The voice sounds so familiar.

It sounds almost like Penelope.

“JACK!!”

“WAKE UP!!”

“IT’S JUST A DREAM!!”

“JACK!!”

The ice cracks and the water swallows Jack whole.

Jack awakes in his room.

The sun is still shining through his curtains and he hears his guardians rustle and roam about the room. His nightmare has shaken him down to the white of his bone. It felt so easy to give in, give up, and accept the fact that he was going to die so young. It wasn’t like the desperation he felt months before when the cold blade bit into his skin. His limbs moved on their own accord then, and his mind was blank. The only thing on his mind then was the fact that he could find a way to numb the pain he always felt.

Jack felt a pain in his chest. It burned.

The warmth he felt from Hiccup ebbed and left a coldness in its wake. Jack curls underneath the covers, remembering the ache in his lungs as he drowned in ice water.

The world seemed to move on, unaware of the turmoil rampaging inside of Jack Frost’s mind.

The world moved.

And Jack cried.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for any grammar/spelling errors


End file.
